


the sky swept clean

by icedmachinery, icemachine



Category: Doom Patrol (TV)
Genre: M/M, the ant farm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:40:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22204234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icedmachinery/pseuds/icedmachinery, https://archiveofourown.org/users/icemachine/pseuds/icemachine
Summary: “Why do you hate it so much?”“I don’t hate it,” he replies. Sighs. “I don’t even know what it is.”“Well, they’re torturing it, and you don’t seem to mind.”“If they’re torturing it, then they’re not torturing me,” says 721; the second use of torturing is said with a haunting cadence, feels like regret in Flex’s ears.
Relationships: Flex Mentallo & Larry Trainor, Keeg Bovo & Flex Mentallo, Keeg Bovo & Larry Trainor
Comments: 3
Kudos: 42





	the sky swept clean

At first, he thinks of the ANT Farm emptiness as temporary, but knows that the emptiness is like a bottomless well within the mind—-within the heart, the stomach, the visceral organ systems of the human inhuman body, moving in musical-physical-divine harmony with one another to keep Flex immortal despite the wholeness that has been carved, cut, extracted from him. We will vivisect him: a cardiovascular shaped and stringed like Dolores, cut in two pieces, halo-less and gold-struck, teeth and words and bones and words like knives, never tough enough to cut through the meat of his muscle flesh, all pink and red, smooth and skeletal and cardiovascular. Teeth and words and bones and muscles stretched over every single one of those things, like a body, almost like a body.

A well within his mind; this is a comforting concept, like a child’s blanket, a soft and encompassing thing to keep him warm, to keep his thoughts pin-sharp, to keep his existence immobile, as if he is the horrific antithesis to normal life.

Normal life does not matter, because: they have Dolores.

Dolores represents everything that life is; superlunary, sun-like, light beaming out of her smile that could blind God himself, and with Dolores, life is experienced like climbing out of a bottomless well within the mind to feel the rays of healing against skin, skin against skin. With Dolores, life is life, and the universe corrects itself, constantly overwriting mistakes to make more elegance.

She  _ is  _ life.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


They take the man in 721 away, and this time he goes without protest. Flex can usually hear his hesitation, in his words and vocal composure, but this time—- _ this time  _ he leaves in compliance, follows Charles Forsythe with every step. The noise of footsteps on the hard, glossy floor, and Flex’s mind fizzling.

He doesn’t hear the screaming, either. He hasn’t heard the screaming for a very long time. Part of him is relieved, but: the rest of him knows better. They don’t just  _ stop  _ torturing you in here, the pain doesn’t simply go away; he briefly entertains the idea that they’ve killed Sparky, but he also knows better in this respect, they’re not going to kill something so valuable, so mystifying, so--- _ beautiful. _

They may not be able to see the beauty, but Flex can. Flex Mentallo knows elegance when he sees it, can sense grace like a higher form of knowledge. He wonders what the being’s true name is; he had assigned the word  _ sparky,  _ a descriptor for its sparking electrical composition, but the name does not capture its essence well enough. It is almost crude, he thinks, but can  _ anything  _ accurately describe this being?

Flex lives in the ANT Farm like breathing, and finds himself missing Sparky like breathing, as if he’s gasping for air and thrashing through the waters surrounding him—-in a different metaphor, it is as if Sparky is air and the location is suffocating, coiling around his neck and within his lungs, and the being is the only thing that can unbury him, put  _ life  _ back into his world—-it is, in every sense, the only thing bearable about this place.

So. Of course it has to go away. Everything does.

* * *

They eventually place Larry back in the cell. His body throbs with the electricity within him; the electricity that is both a remnant from the torture and the electricity that appears to envelop the Spirit, electricity like nesting dolls - one layer, the top layer, being overfed with pain and t o r t u r e, stuffed insatiable, he thinks of himself as constantly hungry—-a hunger for freedom, an understanding that he Deserves This and can -  _ should  _ \- never be free, after which the hunger for freedom morphs into a hunger for pain, a punishment for the undying hunger of starvation, the hunger for other men that he just cannot seem to shake. He deserves this, the final doll within him being the Spirit, the core of his very being. This is a very long and elaborate way of saying  _ Larry does not deserve to live and should have died in his crash, and the Spirit within him does not know how tainted he is, not yet, but it needs to save itself because Larry will eventually hurt it too.  _ He does not loathe it yet, only fears it; later he will learn to despise it just for existing inside of him, in the wrong way, but for now, in these cracked and failing walls, Captain Trainor sees himself in everything.

For some reason, he expects 722 to be gone when he gets back. This is not the case.

Instead 722 seems to be waiting for him.

* * *

The minute he hears the door open, the body flung into the chair, and the door promptly slam shut, Flex can feel his heart race.

“ _ Hey, _ ” he says, without thinking. There is a vent between their rooms; the other man can hear him clearly, he knows that he can, but there is no response, so he repeats it:  _ hey. Hey, hey,  _ like a prayer.

He eventually gives in. “Don’t talk to me.”

  
  


“I’m not.”

“Don’t talk to  _ it  _ either.”

“Jeez, sorry.” A pause, and then bravery. “Why do you hate it so much?”

“I don’t hate it,” he replies. Sighs. “I don’t even know what  _ it  _ is.”

“Well, they’re torturing it, and you don’t seem to mind.”

“If they’re torturing it, then they’re not torturing me,” says 721; the second use of  _ torturing  _ is said with a haunting cadence, feels like regret in Flex’s ears, moving sharp through Flex’s mind. “I don’t know,” 721 continues, “I don’t… I just don’t want anyone else to get hurt because of me.”

“But Sparky doesn’t matter? It’s alive too, you know.”

He ignores the question. “I guess I should just be thankful that you aren’t trying to get me to escape with you this time.”

“I can’t,” Flex says, and then his vision is filled with Dolores’ laugh, Dolores’ smile, her beauty, everything about her perfect, everything about her heavenly. “They have my wife,” he says, tries to stop any intruding tears. “They’ll kill her if I try again.”

“I’m sorry,” 721 says, and it sounds genuine. “I really am.”

There’s silence. A very long, winding silence, as Flex tries to daydream; he’s back with Dolores, in the park, she is his home and she is stroking his face, saying  _ I’ll never leave you again,  _ and they’re safe; overall he daydreams about safety, overall he fantasizes about unity, until the reality bleeds like ink back into his body—-

“So you can talk to it?”

The phrase startles him; the Dolores in his mind is ripped away, again, by 721’s words. Again.

“Well, yeah, sure,” he responds, composing himself. “Can’t you?”

“No. I don’t think so, at least.”

“Huh.”

…..

….

….

“What do you know about this… spirit?” asks 721, shakily. “What has it told you?”

“It told me that it’s stuck with you.”

“Yeah, I got that part.”

“It told me it’s from some sort of other dimension and it wants to go back there,” he says, and then, low: “It told me they keep torturing it with these… loud noises. And it told me that the torture never stops, even when it goes back to you.”

“What?”

“What are you doing to Sparky, man?”

“Nothing,” says 721. Defensive, shock. “I’m not doing anything.”

“Yeah, well… I’m hearing a different story.”

* * *

_ The torture never stops,  _ Larry thinks. It dominates his mind, seeps into every neuron.  _ The torture never stops, even when it goes back to you.  _ Torture. He is  _ torturing  _ someone; another being, something  _ real.  _ Something that never asked for this. Something that doesn’t deserve this.

_ Oh,  _ Larry thinks,  _ oh.  _ He deserves this. This is where he belongs; in this cell, in this suit, hidden from the world—-he’s keeping the world safe from Larry Trainor’s monstrosities, he is saving the world, he is Being A Hero, here, in this captivity, by making sure that no normal people will ever have to encounter him again.

Sometimes sacrifices are necessary. Sometimes, in order to ensure the greater good, horrors have to be endured.

_ A blue light fills up his vision, glowing from within his suit. He does not feel afraid; only pities, for a moment, and then mourning, only mourning. _

**Author's Note:**

> crying
> 
> pls kudos + comment if enjoyed :)


End file.
